The Blog

We wanted to share a brief story about one of our Board members, Betty Sparks, a nurse at Newton Wellesley Hospital, who is also a specially trained nurse in providing care and treatment in the wake of all types of disasters.

Betty, who was on the ground to help victims after Hurricane Katrina and in Haiti after the devastating earthquake, was working at the medical tent at the finish line of the Boston Marathon yesterday, and she was there to respond and care for the victims when the bombs exploded.

She is trained to do this, she has seen horrific scenes before, but this time it was different, for at the finish line she knew her son was there with a camera getting ready to photograph her daughter-in-law, who was finishing the race.

“I never had to run out to victims before where one of them could have been someone I knew, a member of my family,” she wrote in an email after the event.

Thankfully, her son and daughter-in-law were fine, and Betty did what she is trained to do. She worked the scene, caring for the victims as she always does in these situations until they were all transferred out to the city’s hospitals.

We salute Betty Sparks as a true hero, for her courage and her professionalism, and we offer our thanks that her family was unharmed, as we continue to mourn and pray for those who were not so fortunate.